With that cry up sprang—on moved—thousands upon thousands! They rushed from the heights—they poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. The power of the praetor was as a reed beneath the whirlwind.The guards made but a feeble barrier the waves of the human sea
moment of his doom! In despair, and in a terror which beat down even pride, he glanced his eyes over the rolling and rushing crowd—when, right above them, he beheld a strange and awful apparition—he beheld—and his craft restored his courage!
“Behold!” he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of the crowd, “Behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!” The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian and beheld with ineffable dismay a vast vapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius in the form of a gigantic pine tree—the trunk, blackness; the branches, fire.
At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls of the theater trembled; and beyond, in the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs. An instant more and the mountain cloud seemed to roll towards them, dark and rapid, like a torrent. At the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stone! Over the crushing vines, over the desolate streets, over the amphitheater itself, far and wide, with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell that awful shower! No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly—each dashing,halted for a moment, to enable Arbaces to count the exact pressing, crushing against the other. Trampling recklessly over the fallen,—amidst groans and oaths and prayers and sudden shrieks,—the enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages. Whither should they fly for protection from the terrors of the open air?
And then darker and larger and mightier spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and more ghastly night rushing upon the realm of noon!
From “The Last Days of Pompeii”
